Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic

I have noticed that the newspapers over the last few days have attempted to link Saddam Hussein with other dictators such as Adolf Hitler. One even went as far to say that it was noticeable that all the worst dictators in history were all non-Christians.

It is a common myth that Hitler was not a Christian. In fact, he always made it clear that he was a Roman Catholic. In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. Once he gained power he got the support of both the Protestant and Catholic churches. The anti-semitism on which the Nazi movement was built was fostered by the main churches. It was this support which made Nazism so acceptable to respectable people.

Even as late as 1941 Hitler told one of his generals: I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always remain so.

I have noticed that the newspapers over the last few days have attempted to link Saddam Hussein with other dictators such as Adolf Hitler. One even went as far to say that it was noticeable that all the worst dictators in history were all non-Christians.

It is a common myth that Hitler was not a Christian. In fact, he always made it clear that he was a Roman Catholic. In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote “by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”. Once he gained power he got the support of both the Protestant and Catholic churches. The anti-semitism on which the Nazi movement was built was fostered by the main churches. It was this support which made Nazism so acceptable to “respectable” people.

Even as late as 1941 Hitler told one of his generals: “I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always remain so.”

Though characteristically blithe, it nonetheless quickly rises above the rouge-necked, knee-jerked, dismissively bigoted and willfully ignorant generalities dashed off by our Fuhrer. The perspective of selective history delivered in simplistic, declarative prose is irony that is not lost below the horizontal line here. Keep in mind that this comes to us from a purported scholar. It usually does.

Though characteristically blithe, it nonetheless quickly rises above the rouge-necked, knee-jerked, dismissively bigoted and willfully ignorant generalities dashed off by our Fuhrer. The perspective of selective history delivered in simplistic, declarative prose is irony that is not lost below the horizontal line here. Keep in mind that this comes to us from a purported scholar. It usually does.

Is this the Fuhrer that gives you the freedom to call him a Fuhrer? They don't make Fuhrers like they used to.

Though characteristically blithe, it nonetheless quickly rises above the rouge-necked, knee-jerked, dismissively bigoted and willfully ignorant generalities dashed off by our Fuhrer. The perspective of selective history delivered in simplistic, declarative prose is irony that is not lost below the horizontal line here. Keep in mind that this comes to us from a purported scholar. It usually does.

Is this the Fuhrer that gives you the freedom to call him a Fuhrer? They don't make Fuhrers like they used to.

Wasn't Stalin a lapsed, [or in today's parlance recovering Catholic] too? I'm not sure I understand what the reasoning is behind Hitler's Catholicism re this thread

I'm not sure I understand what the reasoning is behind Hitler's Catholicism re this thread

I think it's all about a current debate in the UK about religion. Some of the apologists for religion are claiming that the mass murderers are all atheists. The fact that Adolf Hitler was a Catholic doesn't fit in with this theory, which is why it's necessary to bring this fact to light.

I have noticed that the newspapers over the last few days have attempted to link Saddam Hussein with other dictators such as Adolf Hitler. One even went as far to say that it was noticeable that all the worst dictators in history were all non-Christians.

It is a common myth that Hitler was not a Christian. In fact, he always made it clear that he was a Roman Catholic. In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote “by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”. Once he gained power he got the support of both the Protestant and Catholic churches. The anti-semitism on which the Nazi movement was built was fostered by the main churches. It was this support which made Nazism so acceptable to “respectable” people.

Even as late as 1941 Hitler told one of his generals: “I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always remain so.”

Though characteristically blithe, it nonetheless quickly rises above the rouge-necked, knee-jerked, dismissively bigoted and willfully ignorant generalities dashed off by our Fuhrer. The perspective of selective history delivered in simplistic, declarative prose is irony that is not lost below the horizontal line here. Keep in mind that this comes to us from a purported scholar. It usually does.

Somebody's Weltanschauung is showing...

JG

Dear oh dear - John Simkin as "Fuhrer"? I doubt the trains would have run on time!

In the original programme of the Nazi Party drawn up by Adolf Hitler, Anton Drexler and Gottfried Feder in February, 1920, promised religious freedom for all those religions except those which endangered the German race.

Once Hitler gained power he was quick to express his hatred of the Jews. Based on his readings of how blacks were denied civil rights in the southern states in America, Hitler attempted to make life so unpleasant for Jews in Germany that they would emigrate. The campaign started on 1st April, 1933, when a one-day boycott of Jewish-owned shops took place. Members of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) picketed the shops to ensure the boycott was successful.

The hostility of towards Jews increased in Nazi Germany. This was reflected in the decision by many shops and restaurants not to serve the Jewish population. Placards saying "Jews not admitted" and "Jews enter this place at their own risk" began to appear all over Germany. In some parts of the country Jews were banned from public parks, swimming-pools and public transport.

Germans were also encouraged not to use Jewish doctors and lawyers. Jewish civil servants, teachers and those employed by the mass media were sacked. Many Jewish people who could no longer earn a living left the country. The number of Jews emigrating increased after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. Under this new law Jews could no longer be citizens of Germany. It was also made illegal for Jews to marry Aryans.

The Jehovah's Witnesses were also persecuted in Nazi Germany as they refused to do military service. Nazis also hated the sect because they believed in the imminent return of a Messiah. The rejection that this was not Adolf Hitler led to its members being sent to Germany's concentration camps.

Leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches remained silent throughout this period. The main opposition to Hitler came from a group of young pastors led by Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoffer and Heinrich Gruber. Initially the main complaint was the decision by Adolf Hitler to appoint Ludwig Muller, as the country's Reich Bishop of the Protestant Church. With the support of Karl Barth, a professor of theology at Bonn University, in May, 1934, these rebel pastors formed what became known as the Confessional Church. Over the next few years hundreds of these pastors were sent to concentration camps and some were executed.

In 1934 Michael von Faulhaber, the Archbishop of Munich, published Judenum, Christentum, Germanentum, that defended the principles of racial tolerance and humanity and called for the people of Germany to respect the Jewish religion. However, Faulhaber, and other Catholic bishops, made no open protest against the atrocities being committed against the Jews in Germany.

Faulhaber occasionally condemned racial intolerance in his sermons and during Crystal Night he provided a truck for the Chief Rabbi of Munich to salvage religious objects from his synagogue before it was destroyed by the Nazis in November, 1938.

In 1938 Faulhaber supported Anschluss and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He also held a special mass in November 1939 to celebrate Hitler's escape from Johann Elser's assassination attempt.

Pope Pius XI condemned the Nuremberg Laws in July, 1938, and was preparing an encyclical against anti-Semitism, but died in 1939 before it could be completed. His successor, Pius XII decided not to speak out against the atrocities being carried out in Germany.

In 1941 August von Galen, the Archbishop of Munster, spoke out in a sermon against the Nazi practice of euthanasia (the killing of those considered by the Nazis as genetically unsuitable). Adolf Hitler wanted Galen arrested but Joseph Goebbels warned against this as Galen was a popular religious leader. It is claimed that Galen's sermon inspired the formation of the anti-Nazi White Rose group.

Martin Niemöller spent the Second World War in Dachau Concentration Camp. As he was a First World War hero Adolf Hitler gave orders for him to be left alive. His colleague, Dietrich Bonhoffer, was arrested in April, 1943 and was charged with planning the July Plot. He was held in Buchenwald Concentration Camp until being executed in April, 1945.

On 5th June 1945 Niemöller gave a press conference in Naples. He admitted that he had offered to join the German Navy in 1939. He also confessed that he had "never quarrelled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds". This resulted in a savage attack on Niemöller from those newspapers that had presented him as a symbol of resistance to Hitler's government.

In 1946 Niemöller wrote a poems that illustrated the role that the Church played in the development of Nazi Germany:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Many high profile Nazis were Catholics- including one Claus Von Stauffenberg. But far from being anti-Fascist, the elements of the Vatican helped escaping nazis at the end of WWII, to freedom in S.America.

Ironically, Magda Goebbels father-inlaw was jewish, and she herself once dated a jew- Haim Arsoloff, who became a prominent Zionist and was assassinated in Palestine in 1933.

Many high profile Nazis were Catholics- including one Claus Von Stauffenberg. But far from being anti-Fascist, the elements of the Vatican helped escaping nazis at the end of WWII, to freedom in S.America.

Ironically, Magda Goebbelsfather-inlaw was jewish, and she herself once dated a jew- Haim Arsoloff, who became a prominent Zionist and was assassinated in Palestine in 1933.

Religion in Nazi Germany was complicated by Nazi attitudes towards God, religion and Germany’s churches. Contrary to popular opinion, Hitler himself was not an atheist. As a boy he had been introduced to Catholicism by his religious mother; he was later educated in a Catholic school and served as a choirboy in his local cathedral. Hitler drifted away from the church after leaving home, and his religious views in adulthood are in dispute. According to those closest to Hitler, he continued to identify as a Catholic and made financial contributions to the church, though he never attended church or received communion. Mein Kampf contains many references to a divine creator, albeit one that does not interfere in the destinies of men. Hitler’s early speeches often mentioned the vital role Christianity had played in the history of Germany, emphasising the link between Christian beliefs, morality and German society:

Today Christians … stand at the head of [Germany]. I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity … We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre and in the press. In short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture, as a result of liberal excess.

In private, however, Hitler could be strongly critical of organised religion. He considered Christianity’s biggest weakness to be its concern with compassion and charity. Hitler also believed the core values of Nazism, like nationalism and loyalty to the state, were undermined by the teachings of some religions. He feared the political influence churches could wield, possibly to the detriment of his own agenda.

Christianity itself was in a state of decline in Germany in the early 1900s, undermined by rationalism, secular values and left-wing political ideas. There was a sharp drop in church attendance during the Great Depression (rolls from 1932 show 186,000 Germans had ceased attending Christian churches in that year). Nevertheless the vast majority of Germans still identified as Christians (52 per cent Protestant and 33 per cent Catholic, according to the 1933 census). The higher clergy of Germany’s Christian churches still retained considerable influence, while the Pope and the Vatican could potentially exert influence over Germany’s Catholics from outside the nation’s borders.

Protestantism divided

Nazi impositions into German life in 1933-34 forced churches to take a position on Hitler and his party. Some Protestant churches openly supported the NSDAP. They pushed for the creation of a Reichskirche: a ‘state church’ that was loyal to Nazism and subordinate to the state. The Deutsche Kristen (‘German Christians’) was the largest branch of German Protestantism and the most supportive of a Reichskirche. Its leaders believed Hitler was a visionary in the same vein as Martin Luther (the founder of Protestantism in the 1500s); they thought Hitler had the potential to complete the transformation of German Christianity. There was a strong anti-Semitic strain in the Deutsche Kristen; some of its leaders urged the rejection of Jewish texts and the expulsion of Jews who had converted to Protestantism. The leader of the Deutsche Kristen, Ludwig Muller (pictured, left) met with Hitler several times and pledged his church’s support to the Nazis.

German Protestantism was a broad movement, however, and not all churches supported Hitler. Other Protestant leaders considered Christianity to be ‘above politics'; it should not support any party or align itself with nationalism or fascist values. In September 1933 several dozen delegates from Protestant churches united to form the Pfarrernotbund (‘Emergency League of Pastors’) to resist the creation of a pro-Nazi state religion. The Pfarrernotbund also criticised the ‘Aryan paragraph’, a clause inserted into employment contracts to remove Jews from certain occupations. The group elected a leader, Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor from suburban Berlin. Within a few months the Pfarrernotbund had support from more than 7,000 individual Protestant clergymen.

In May 1934 a number of Protestant churches united to form the Bekennende Kirche (‘Confessing Church’) and resist attempts to ‘nazify’ German churches. Members of the Bekennende Kirche were critical of Nazi policies during the mid-1930s, particularly anti-Semitic measures. The Nazis responded by targeting Pfarrernotbund and Bekennende Kirche figureheads, leaving the groups largely leaderless. Martin Niemoller was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and was detained in Dachau until 1945. Other members of the Bekennende Kirche risked their lives by sheltering Jewish-born Christians, raising money and supplying fugitives with forged papers during the war.

A Nazi-Catholic concordat

The relationship between German Catholicism and the Nazi Party was optimistic at first, but soon deteriorated. Germany’s Catholics, who were persecuted in the 1870s, had long desired a concordat – an agreement between the Vatican and Berlin that guaranteed the rights of Catholic Germans. Hitler supported this idea, shortly after coming to power in 1933. He had no great desire to protect Catholic rights and privileges – but a successful concordat might win him support from Germany’s Catholics, as well as a degree of respect from the international community. He also hoped to reduce the political influence of the Catholic church, as the Nazis strived to consolidate their power.

In April 1933 Nazi delegates began negotiations with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (pictured with Hitler), the Vatican’s delegate to Germany and the future Pope Pius XII. During these negotiations the Nazis shut down Catholic publications, broke up meetings of the Catholic-based Centre Party and threw outspoken Catholics into concentration camps. The negotiations were conducted, as Pacelli later put it, with a pistol at his head. The final document, the Reichskonkordat, was signed into law on July 20th 1933. It was a diplomatic and political victory for the Nazis, chiefly because the Catholic church and its representatives were banned from participating in politics. Among the terms of the concordat:

Catholics were guaranteed freedom of religious belief and worship in Nazi Germany

The Vatican retained the right to communicate with, and preach to, German Catholics

The church retained the right to collect ecclesiastical taxes and donations

Catholic bishops had to swear an oath promising to “honour” the government

Catholic organisations such as charities, schools and youth groups were protected

Catholic clergymen and delegates could not be members of, or speak on behalf of, political parties

Persecution of Catholics

The Catholic Church … consistently maintained an anti-Nazi attitude. In several parts of Germany Catholics were explicitly forbidden to become members of the Nazi Party, and Nazi members were forbidden to take part in church funerals and ceremonies. The bishop of Mainz even refused to admin NSDAP members to the holy sacraments.Jane Caplan, historian

Pacelli and his colleagues were not optimistic about the terms of the Reichskonkordat. They knew Hitler would not protect the church’s rights – and would probably infringe them himself. It was, as put by historian Hubert Wolf, “a pact with the devil – no one had any illusions about that fact in Rome – but it [at least] guaranteed the continued existence of the Catholic Church during the Third Reich”. The Nazis began flouting the terms of the concordat while the ink on it was still drying. In December 1933, Berlin ordered that all editors and publishers must belong to a Nazi ‘literary society'; this decree gagged Catholic publications and prevented church leaders from protesting breaches of the Reichskonkordat. Between 1934 and 1936 the Nazis ordered several Catholic and Lutheran youth groups to be absorbed by the Hitler Youth. Catholic schools were shut down and replaced with ‘community schools’, run by pro-Nazis. A year-long campaign against Catholic schools in Munich in 1935 saw enrolments drop by more than 30 per cent.

In 1936 there were more direct attacks on the church and its members. Dozens of Catholic priests were arrested by the Gestapo and given show trials, where fabricated evidence was used to suggest they were involved in corruption, prostitution, homosexuality and pedophilia. Anti-Catholic propaganda appeared on street corners and in the pages of the notorious anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Sturmer. This campaign produced a defensive response from the church: a March 1937 encyclical (circular letter) entitled Mit brennender Sorge (‘With burning concern’). It was written by Michael von Faulhaber, archbishop of Munich, with an introduction by Cardinal Pacelli and an endorsement from Pope Pius XI. Mit brennender Sorge criticised Nazi breaches of the Reichskonkordat, condemned Nazi views on race and ridiculed the glorification of statehood and leaders:

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state … above their standard value, and raises them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God.

More than a quarter-million copies of the encyclical were distributed to German churches, to be read to congregations from the pulpit. Hitler was infuriated and the Nazi response was swift and intense. Gestapo agents raided churches and printers, seizing and destroying copies of the encyclical wherever they could be found. The campaign of propaganda and show trials against Catholic clergy continued apace through 1938-39, and several priests ended up behind the barbed wire at Dachau and Oranienburg.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Another group persecuted by the Nazis were Germany’s 15,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. The religious beliefs of Witnesses prevented them from swearing allegiance to government or secular powers. They also refused to submit to military conscription or to perform the Nazi one-armed salute. In April 1933 Nazi stormtroopers shut down several Jehovah’s Witness offices and buildings; by the middle of 1933 the religion itself had been banned in most parts of Germany. Individual Witnesses were sacked from jobs in the public and private sector, and refused access to welfare or pensions. (They could restore these rights if they renounced their religion and pledged allegiance to the Nazi state.) The Gestapo began compiling a register of all Witnesses in 1936. By 1938 some had been arrested and transported to concentration camps, where they were identified by a triangular purple patch. About 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses would be detained in camps between 1938 and 1945; around one-quarter of this number were murdered or succumbed to starvation or disease.

key points

1. The Nazi attitude to religion was complex, but in general they strongly opposed the political influence of churches.
2. Hitler was not an atheist and often utilised references to God, Christianity and religion to connect with Germans.
3. German Protestant churches were divided about Nazism, with a strong faction pushing for a Nazified ‘state religion’.
4. The Nazis signed a concordat with the Catholic church, though this was a political ploy which they soon violated.
5. Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to swear loyalty to Hitler or undertake military service, so were subsequently persecuted.